T400 wifi heads-up

I've had a couple of unfortunate experiences with T400s and Intel wifi lately.

First, my brand-new T400 with Intel 5300 and Vista Ultimate wouldn't reliably connect to my wifi router (or access points in two hotels or the Denver airport). It would connect with a couple of other access points. The symptom was that it would associate, but not receive an IP address. DHCP wasn't working. If I let it fail, then immediately rebooted, it would work OK until I changed access points or went to a wired connection. The next wifi connection would fail, requiring an immediate reboot to work.

With XP loaded on the machine, wifi worked as expected. With Vista Ultimate or Vista Business 64, it was flakey. Updating all software didnt' help.

The "fix" (suggested by a 2nd tier Lenovo tech) was to downgrade to an Intel 5100. Since then it has wifi has worked just fine. Not a pretty solution, but at least I have a usable machine.

More recently, a friend brought over two T400s still in their unopened boxes so I could lead him throught the recovery media creation process. Both were running XP Pro with Intel 5100s installed. Once the initial formalities were done, we tested wifi on both machines. Both could see my router (Linksys WRT54GX2) but both failed to associate. Once again, an immediate reboot after failure caused them to associate, get an address, and work as expected - until changing AP or going to a wired connection. The symptom (or at least the error indication) was different from my T400 w/vista, but the behavior was similar.

With those machines doing full updates of XP and all Lenovo software seemed to fix things. Since then they have behaved as they should, at least with my router.

It's not pretty when one of the most basic requirements of a laptop fails to work right out of the box. Someone who always used their machine with the same AP wouldn't see this problem (after the 1st reboot anyway) but it is a real issue for a road warrior.

That's the end of the heads-up/rant/cry for help. Anyone else seen this kind of misbehavior? Anyone have an explanation or a better solution?

Thanks,

Z.

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Re: T400 wifi heads-up

The wifi "solutions" are as I described above. On the T400 running vista, I replaced the Intel 5300 card with a 5100. On the two T400s running XP that already have 5100s installed, I did full updates of the Microsoft and Lenovo software.

So far/for now all three machines are behaving OK. Except for the buggy Intel grahpics driver that hogs the CPU, and a few other things...

Z.

Message Edited by zoltanthegypsy on 01-12-2009 06:44 AM

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The fine print: I do not work for, nor do I speak for Lenovo. Unsolicited private messages will be ignored. ... GeezBlog

Re: T400 wifi heads-up

cpueschner wrote:Oh these cards can be replaced, not integrated into the motherboard? Is it more of a fail-safe to just get the 5100?

These can be replaced. They are mini PCI cards located under the keyboard.

As to whether it is safer to just go with the 5100, I don't have an answer for you. Going to a 5100 fixed my Vista problems. I can say that with certainty.

Z.

The large print: please read the Community Participation Rules before posting. Include as much information as possible: model, machine type, operating system, and a descriptive subject line. Do not include personal information: serial number, telephone number, email address, etc.

The fine print: I do not work for, nor do I speak for Lenovo. Unsolicited private messages will be ignored. ... GeezBlog

I followed the last post exactly and haven't had a problem since, about 5 days.

I saw that thread when I was fighting with the 5300. My issues were different. I couldn't associate or in some cases couldn't get an IP address. I didn't have problems with the connection dropping once it was made.

Z.

The large print: please read the Community Participation Rules before posting. Include as much information as possible: model, machine type, operating system, and a descriptive subject line. Do not include personal information: serial number, telephone number, email address, etc.

The fine print: I do not work for, nor do I speak for Lenovo. Unsolicited private messages will be ignored. ... GeezBlog

Re: T400 wifi heads-up

zoltanthegypsy , thank you for your suggestion. What i did yesterday was to go up to Intel's website and download the new driver (12.2.0.11) for 5300. i will test it for a few days and see what happen. anyway, thank you for your prompt reply.

Re: T400 wifi heads-up

I had the same problems too with the 5300 on XP whenever I tried to create a profile using Access Connections. I tried just about every combination of settings that I could think of with AC and the Intel utilitiy but it kept associating with access points but not actually connect with them. What I had to constantly do was open up AC and then click on the connect button so that I'd actually connect to the access point.

Now I've set the Intel proset utility to handle wireless connections and I haven't had any problems immediately connecting when I turn on the machine. I still have Access Connections installed, but I just use Intel now primarily.

As for the dropping of the connections, I had that problem constantly before, but now I rarely have that problem, and when I do it's only because of distance from the access point.